The question “what is nature?” is the question of the philosophy of nature. However, the purpose of this article is to pose the question and to outline the answer regardless of how the natural sciences do it. First thing is the elaboration of purely philosophical approach. The starting point for consideration is the popular claim that nature is what surrounds us. Following the clue the author explores the relationship man-nature as historical and rich in meaning. Inexhaustible variety of sense he orders according to register of values that motivate human activity. In this way he gets a list of theoretical, ethical, aesthetic, pragmatic, religious and vitalistic sense of nature that achieves the question “what is nature?”.